Hello friends..
I have a strange situation I am hoping someone can chime in on... Keep in mind I am pretty noob to Evo's, so bare with me...
We (myself, my bf and a couple awesome friends) just finished installing an fp green on my 2010 X gsr and it was not really that much fun, but got it done... Took the 3 hr trip today to the dyno and tuner and this is what happened.... it runs great, and idles great, it sounds great BUT as soon as it hits peak boost it will not hold it - hits anywhere from 22-27 psi and goes STRAIGHT down to 14-17psi.. it will try to get back up from there and waffles back down... (the graphs showed it peaks at ~24psi at 3600rpm and drops to 14psi at 3800rpm and then to 19psi by 4500rpm, 4th gear pulls...)
It has the following mods:
catless tbe, intake, walbro 255, 800cc injectors, fmic... it also has a Forge actuator on the turbo, it has the Cobb recommended boost pill (by the solenoid) removed, and the tuner just installed a pill in the line onto the bpv as per his recommendation...
NOW, we checked a lot of things - bpv is fine (tested it to atmosphere), all couplers and hoses seem fine (visually), no strange idling to indicate a boost leak, tried using a manual boost controller and the same thing happened... he had a look at the actuator and pressure tested it, it opens at 20psi - I don't know if this is normal, but I am leaning towards it being the issue? -- long story short, turbo was taken from a friend's evo, I had it machined and a helia-coil thing put in, the shop took it apart at the time... when reassembling it the boys couldn't get the actuator rod to meet to it's pin easily - I told them not to adjust it, but turns out one of the guys did loosen off the nut on the rod to get it back into the pin and didn't put it back to where it was.. I don't know why... regardless... could THIS be the cause of not holding boost?? is it a vacuum hose or leak somewhere??

Any help would be awesome, I am at a loss...
Car runs mint, drives great, has good boost until you hit peak and it just struggles and tries it's damn best but cannot hold it...
Help a girl out

 

Yes, that is 99% the problem.

 

i thought so...
had to second guess myself as I don't know too much on this stuff (but trying to learn)... and also kinda choked after telling the tuner exactly the above situation and saying that I am pretty sure that's the problem, he couldn't figure it out/didn't try to... and I had paid extra for his time to test everything but...

thanks!

I will adjust it tomorrow and try again...

 

this is another reason why i rather read and figure out how to do some of these things my self. hope it all works out for you...

 

That seems to have been the issue... I adjusted the rod to where you could see roughly a 1/4 of the knob-y of the wastegate through the hole of the rod (lol don't mind my nontechnical words)... put it back on and took it for a rip... 4th gear pull and it definitely holds boost now - go figure it seems to be over boosting though, spiked up to ~29.4psi (I didn't log it, just saw the number on my AP) and down to about the 24-26 ish and holds well give or take a few psi... so now I am wondering if I should be using a MBC or if it should be tuned again to compensate? I am not so keen on such overboost -- I am pretty pissy about the tuner not listening to me about adjusting the actuator in the first place.... and then charging me for not fixing it and not doing what I suggested.. not sure if I care to go back there to be honest

 

I would def not go to WOT a whole lot if you are using pump gas. 29.4 psi is a lot for stock internals on pump. I would go back and get a retune.. Most people don't use mbc's on the X. Maybe a 3-port..

 

yah I am running 94 octane... I guess I'll have to take it back afterall.
at least it's all worked out now I guess

 

Also, in your opinions, if I was to tell a tuner that it had an adjustable wg actuator, would it be safe to say that after seeing the dyno results and boost issue that a decent tuner would have maybe tried to adjust that first? ... I am hoping to explain to him that he should at least finish my tune for free after paying double the normal bill for him to not do the obvious

 

Tough to say man. I mean, if you paid full price the first time AND paid him for troubleshooting the issue then yeah, I would certainly request that he "finish" the tune for free..... considering I don't see how he would have been able to do much tuning in the first place with boost all over the place like that.

You also have to consider dyno time... If the tuner does not work for the shop that owns the dyno.... someone's gotta pay for dyno time.

Back when I was doing some tuning work i had a few situations like this and would normally not charge for the troubleshooting so long as we found the issue and were able to tune the car. There were also a lot of time we would go over the condition of the car with the customer on the phone ahead of time and make sure the car was in good working order before making an appointment only to load the car on the dyno, strap them, run them once, pull them down and send the owner away to fix something major before we even felt comfortable in making a full pull... in those cases the tuner / shop should be compensated for their time especially if they turned away other customers for the same day / time because they did not want to overbook.

You gotta keep in mind that if you show up with broke junk that can't be tuned that is not the tuners fault. Now if the shop / tuner is the one who did the install or repair that lead to said "broke junk" then they are the ones that should eat the time and money.

 

yah, it's his shop and his dyno... he charged me for 2 hours of full tuning and 2 hours of random shop time/diagnosing... I definitely understand what you're saying - if it was f$#ed up I would understand (not his fault he couldn't tune a broken car). it's more that I mentioned to him it was an adjustable actuator and maybe we should try it or I could quickly put on the stock one (a couple extra minutes vs 2 hours), but he completely ignored me and went in everyother way... I guess I am asking if it would be normal to at least try to adjust an actuator during a tune in this instance? I don't want money back, and I guess it's kinda my fault it wasnt tightened to what it should be, although I assumed that's why it is adjustable, just want to see if in other's opinions I should complain about it... I'm obviously a silly noob I'm just not sure if this was an oversight of an obvious part of the tune or just my luck

 

I would go back and finish the tune. It should be free. After all. YOU " the customer" fix/found the problem that the TUNER should've found. Hope he takes care of you. GL

 

I would turn the boost all the way down and se if she still over boost. In that case. Loosen the rod half to one turn at a time until you hold min boost through a pull. If you don't do this. You'll risk the chance of your "tuner" charging you for doing this at his shop. Just my 2c.

 

I, for one, would not believe the AP reading for boost. Before I got tuned and was running an AP map, I used it to check boost and it showed I was boosting around 30 on stock turbo and bolt ons. I'm pretty sure it was incorrect, but no way to really know without a real gauge. With tune I'm running about 26 psi. Any of your friends have a boost gauge you can throw on real fast and check it? At any rate without a complete tune, I wouldn't be romping on it a lot until the tune gets finished.

 

Good advice, thanks guys I appreciate the help!!
I have a boost gauge, just have not got around to the install! I'll get that put in and test er' out again.. see what it's looking like on the legit gauge... I have no plans to rip on it until it is actually complete.... might fiddle around with adjusting it some more before I go back.. I asked him if he'd finish the tune for me - we'll see

 

Honestly, it sounds like you should go somewhere else. If I put myself in the tuners shoes and saw the boost all over the place and you said you had swapped the actuator.. first thought would have been "ahh preload is probably off". So I agree he should have figured it out.

Call them back and tell them what you found and ask what he is going to charge you to re tune it. If he wants full price just tell him "no thanks I'm gonna explore other options"